By the way, I just heard on lds.org that the church will start making Book of Mormon videos starting in 2018 now that the Bible videos have been completed. Also, the Martyrdom of Stephen was also released. Maybe not best for kids, but no blood.

Dear family and everyone else, I am alive an well here in Turlock, and Turlock I am here to stay perhaps till the day I die as a missionary (end my mission). My companion's name is Elder Ashcraft. He came down from Sonora 2nd ward. He has 2 older brothers, and both are married. He is an uncle at this time, which is pretty cool. Interesting enough, he may look like he's 16, but he is actually 21 right now. He gets that a lot. He takes medication for anxiety, so whenever he is not on it, he goes on panic mode because he simply can't keep up with his own mind in wanting to get stuff done. The condition also has the person overthink different social situations including street contacting. He is very patient with himself, and I have shown him how much I care about him and his happy well being. He was very grateful for me opening up to him just as much as he has opened up to me. He's also very spiritually minded. He has the greatest desire to do the right thing. We seem to work in great unity so far together. We also know how to council about different topics like where to go at what time, and many important things like that. He loves playing sports, and loves all kinds of music. All in all, we are going to have a blast together here in the Turlock 1st ward. For a side note, my last dinner in Northland Ward was with the Gass's one last time. I love that family. I will definitely miss that ward for sure. Okay back to the current area. We have been orienting ourselves with the area and seeing what the boundaries are, how long it takes to bike from south to north, and to Denair and back. We had a rough first day trying to find stuff. We still struggle to find streets without a GPS in hand. I think I will be buying a wall charger for mine. I have one for a car, but not a wall charger. That will have to change pretty quick or else we will stay lost for sure. We have been busy meeting many members of the ward while sharing the new Christmas Initiative Video called #Light the World. Here is the link to the video. Share it with everyone. Let all members and non-members do what the Savior did and not just think about him and his birth alone. This message has been brought to you by the apostles, first presidency, and missionary board. The best way to build our testimonies of our Savior is to do the things that he would do himself. Enjoy. https://www.mormon.org/christmas/light-the-world?play=hero We do have an investigator on date for January, from what we have been told by the members. We also have Spanish Elders right next to us in our complex, so that's pretty fun. This is the area where Elder Andreasen ran it for a year straight. The poor Elder. He still loved it even though he was here for the last half of his mission. We met one on his baptized converts that's been a member for a year now. She wants to take the lessons again to refresh but is also very sick due to trying to shrink her stomach. Her advice was to never go through that kind of operation. It's caused more problems than the benefits could bring for her. That's about all that I have for now with news. We plan on finding a lot of new investigators that we can pick up from our former investigators book. There are a ton here. This comes to show how much previous work has been done around here. Thank goodness for area books and all the spiritual touch points that we leave with people. Have a great week.Sincerely,Elder White Elder White and Elder Ashcraft

Dear family and everyone else, TRANSFER CALLS ARE HERE!!! I will be going to Turlock 1st ward tomorrow with Elder Ashcraft. We are both being doubled in, so it looks like the beginning of my mission is going to repeat itself with the end of my mission by being doubled in. I never thought it would end that way. I requested that I get transferred out of this ward and that Elder Beus receive a new companion so he can gain new experiences with other companions and receive a new friend too. I did promise Elder Beus this dictionary that I received from my trainer and to keep it safe, and then maintain the pattern and give it to a sister at the end of his mission. I won't be giving it to him yet, but I will at the end of my mission through the mission office. Elder Beus' companion will be Elder Pope. I don't know him, so this will be interesting for him. Elder Beus is also staying in Northland ward and there will still be 2 companionship's serving here. This week, I was able to meet a supposedly LA member in the ward. We tried getting her record moved in, but we couldn't find anything on her with 2 different names, so we may need to get her baptized again so we can recreate those records for her if she so chooses. She kind of looks like my good Aunt Cherie White. That was pretty cool. They are a cool/ crazy family who loves football. Their kids play it for sports. Her husband, Manuel, is interested in learning more about the gospel. He's talked to missionaries before in the distant past, and their family has been taken care of by the church whenever their financial trouble arises. So far, they are really blessed at this time. We won't be able to see them again until next month because of the Thanksgiving holidays and getting set up for Christmas. I was able to go on 2 exchanges this week. The first one was with Elder Ahau again. That was so fun. I love Elder Ahau. It was really cloudy that day, but it at least did not rain on us. The next day, we had our final District Meeting together. I will no longer be a District Leader. I am a normal missionary again. Thank goodness. Stress is killer ya know. The next day, I went on an exchange with Elder Schultz. It was good. He dived right into DoTerra (Essential Oils) after meeting the Rice's. He loves his peppermint. I don't like the smell of peppermint, and it kept me up most of that night. I was happy that exchange was over. It's more of an exciter than a soother like what lavender does. I love the lavender oil. Another missionary gave me some grapefruit oil and that was pretty powerful. It tastes just like grapefruit. It's special property is to help with food addictions, it detoxifies the body, cleaner, and it does some other stuff too. Oils can help with almost anything. I may look into it more when I get home. Someone let me know who sells DoTerra in Utah. There's got to be someone I know that sells it. That would be cool. It's meaning in Greek is "Gift of the Earth". It's quite suiting. Lastly, we were able to get James Cunningham to church again. Apparently, the Methodist Church that he goes to is combining with our ward choir and their hand bells in playing Christmas music at our church building in December. That will be a great activity in getting people to see the inside of our church building. That will be exciting, even though I won't be around for it. That's about it this week. Love you all.Sincerely,Elder White Exchange with Elder Ahau

Elder Beus and Elder White for the last time. Tyler's district for the last time.

Dear family and everyone else, I shall report that I am alive still here in Central Valley, California. I heard about the riots that have been occurring throughout the country. President Palmer just in the nick of time, coincidentally has released the emergency preparedness plan for our mission including storm types of weather, flooding, earthquake, and what this country is facing right now-- political turmoil. What it boils down to is report to our apartments or ward building if anything bad happens. Sounds simple enough, then we call either mission or ward emergency leaders. We got this under control. I doubt that the riots in Oakland will reach here in the suburban towns in the Central Valley. It would be unfortunate if it lasts long enough that it leaks into Stockton too. I pray the people will find humility, just as I do in times of disapproval of whatever it might be. As it says in Galatians 5:22-23 we should have: "Love, joy, peace, long suffering,gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Against such, there is no law." We did have 4 non-members attend church again yesterday. It's been tough trying to get Sally's family to stay the full 3 hours. It's hard when there are family issues and other projects that make it hard. Even James Cunningham came with us this time. We had our ward primary program yesterday. He liked it. I just wished that Monica, one of our other new investigators, came to that. Kael Myer's got baptized. Though he is not a convert, he still wanted all 4 of us there anyway. We were able to bring a couple of investigators to see the baptism. We already explained to Monica and Jason that we do it by the authority that has been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. We have a new Christmas Initiative coming up that will launch on the 25th. It's called, "Light the World". President told us, as we watched it at our Zone Conference, to listen to the words that it will say. Well, it was a trick. There were no spoken words. We are to at least listen to the word's of the spirit that will speak to us. It's really good. I can't wait to show it to you all. May the holidays begin. Love you all.Sincerely,Elder White

Dear family and everyone else, Halloween was pretty good. We were able to have dinner with Sister Weeden, and then we went home. There really weren't a whole lot of trick or treator's around here, or at least in that neighborhood. Everyone started really early while the sun was still glowing in the setting distance, then by about 8 or 8:30, everyone was done and back home. I guess people really don't like the dark or like to stay up late around here. Then we studied whatever for the rest of the evening and planned our next days activities. Tuesday, we had our last Trainer-New Missionary Meeting. We had another good discussion how we, as trainer's, are doing, and the new missionary's councilled and asked general questions for President Palmer to address. We also talked about different scriptures, and about teaching effectively. I brought up Acts 17:19-34 about "The Unknown God." From the context of the story, Paul traveled to Athens--a very logical and deep thinking people. He studied their culture, their famous poets, and historical people. By knowing the people's background, he was able to relate to them more in his teaching style; however, they did reject him because they could not believe in a resurrection of the dead, so although we can do our absolute best, people will still have the gift of agency to choose to accept or reject the gospel. We picked up a couple of new investigators. James Cunningham was the first. He was a former investigator about 2 years ago. Due to a stroke that he had, the missionaries dropped him until he recovered. We taught him the restoration from the pamphlet, and he remembered a lot of different things. He may or may not accept a baptismal invite, but I feel he might. He seems ready to receive the gospel. Brother Cortez warned about him about wasting our time. I think he's changed to the point where he will be baptized. We will see. The other new investigators we picked up were Monica and her husband Jason. We were really happy when we could finally teach them. We did a lot of good service and much more to help them out around their house as they get it ready to sell. Monica was a Baptist, and Jason isn't too religious. We addressed a lot the importance of the family in the gospel, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ helps with family relationships. We then asked them to read the Books of Mormon that we gave them, and pray to know if it's true, and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and that he restored the priesthood on the earth. The baptism invite was a little shaky, but Brother Stokes went with us and made the situation much smoother. We helped her understand that to be baptized, it must be done by the authority given, so she will definetly study up on that. She's been so grateful for all that we have done thus far for her. Daylight savings was glorious. I was able to finally sleep in for an extra hour. I have been so tired lately. I guess serving after 21 months without a break or sleep in day can really do a number on you. When I get home, it's going to suck because spring forward will happen shortly after I get home, along with the time change between the time zones of California and Utah. That's about it for this week. Love you all.Sincerely,Elder White